


she makes me wanna die

by iceblinks



Series: cherry blossom girl [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24876253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceblinks/pseuds/iceblinks
Summary: Yachi falls in love from the sidelines.
Relationships: Shimizu Kiyoko/Yachi Hitoka
Series: cherry blossom girl [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004238
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63





	she makes me wanna die

Anxiety manifests in many forms, and no one knows this better than Yachi Hitoka. Her hands shake when she stands up to answer her teachers; her stomach sometimes turns entire dryer cycles mid-conversation; she swallows past a lump in her throat when she ducks her head to greet her extended family. She swallows two pineapple-flavored antacids before a presentation in precalc, wills herself calm as she breathes fresh air out of the second-story window. 

It is unsurprising, then, when Shimizu approaches her for the first time and Yachi finds herself unable to focus on what she’s saying. Her heart throws itself insistently against her ribcage, denting fleshy walls with the ease of a seasoned butcher flaying red meat. She thinks her organs must be destroyed, that it’s a wonder she’s still alive with her heart going haywire like this so often. Yachi is fifteen and has experienced too much too soon. 

Shimizu is seventeen. She has thick lashes and thin lips and hair that shines under the afternoon sun. She is seventeen and _beautiful,_ and Yachi’s heart throws itself into her throat when Shimizu takes her hand into hers. _Trial membership,_ she says, and Yachi can’t bring herself to say no. Not when those pink lips curve gently upwards and Shimizu’s smile reaches her eyes. Not when Yachi’s hand burns white-hot at every point of contact. Not when her stomach twists so violently she’s afraid she’ll be sick. 

Yachi falls slowly and then all at once. She finds herself drowning in a sea of firsts, carefully cataloging the first time Shimizu touches her shoulder, hugs her, calls her _Hitoka-chan._ Her free time, previously spent playing mobile games and watching hair-braiding tutorials on the internet, becomes a time when she allows herself to think about Shimizu in more than the abstract. The shape of her hands, fingers long and slender, how they look with a pencil weighing lightly between them. The curve of her waist, the way her skirt hangs off her narrow frame. The mole beneath her lip. 

Yachi is a careful person, but she is also a dreamer. She crunches down on strawberry-flavored antacids before her Japanese Literature test and, after checking her answers twice, spends the rest of the period imagining Shimizu coming into her classroom at lunch and taking her hand in front of the class. It’s a nice dream, though if it were to play out in real life, she’d probably be too embarrassed to do anything but stutter. Maybe Shimizu could call her name from outside the classroom and take her hand once they reached the grounds. Yachi imagines the two of them sitting under the tree growing just outside her classroom, cherry blossoms surrounding them in an impenetrable bubble. Shimizu’s voice is sugar-sweet, pink lips centimeters away. 

She gets a 97 on her test, and her teacher has scrawled messily in the margin, _eyes on your own paper you should not be staring out the window during an exam i expect better from you._

Yachi falls in love from the sidelines. She watches Shimizu as much as she watches the team, feels every inch between them when they stand on opposite sides of the scoreboard. She counts the layers between them (five) and wonders, flipping the number _8_ behind the scorekeeper, what it would be like to slip an arm around Shimizu’s waist. Her hands would probably shake against Shimizu’s hips. She probably wouldn’t mind. Shimizu is accommodating, and understanding, and _beautiful._ Yachi wants to take her by her shoulders and tell her this. Neither of them is very confident. Even lost to fantasies of hand-holding and lengthy kisses behind the library, Yachi knows that her nails and lips would be bitten raw of her own accord. 

And yet: Shimizu is her catalyst in blue-tone, dark eyes shining with words that have yet to be said. She is the problem, and in the same breadth, she solves it. This is how Yachi finds herself staring at Shimizu’s outdoor shoes, her body folded into a crisp ninety degrees as she examines the small scuff marks on the outer edges of her Mary Janes. She cannot bear to watch Shimizu’s face, golden in the setting sunlight, as she reads her confession letter. 

It is quiet for many moments before Shimizu says _Thank you for the letter_ and _your penmanship is beautiful_ and _Please call me Kiyoko._ Yachi rises, makes eye contact, breaks away. She stares down at Shimizu’s manicured nails and at the cream-colored stationery she holds between them, cradled gently like it's something precious.

Shimizu’s hands are shaking. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i love,,,them,,,and i really hope to write more for them in the future!! this was a very quick character study done at five in the morning, so hopefully i can do them more justice when i’m fully lucid lol


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